Hostile Takeover
by Elissar
Summary: While fighting deep below the city, Cyborg finds an alien artifact from a race of conquerors who fought for Earth thousands of years ago. Can Cyborg realize what the device does before it turns him into the very thing he fights against?
1. Rundown Discoveries

**Author's Note**: Not enough stories on Cyborg, I think, so I'm writing my second to cover him. Here's the Love, Cy.

**Disclaimer**: I don't own the Teen Titans, because even if I did, I don't have superpowers (yet) and I wouldn't be able to tell them what to do anyway.

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_I am sorry to say that there is too much point to the wisecrack that life is extinct on other planets because their scientists were more advanced than ours. _

_-John F. Kennedy-_

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The street was quiet for a city of Jump's size, even for two in the morning. The night air was still warm from the summer sun as the dull yellow light of the streetlamps cast downward shadows in every direction on the unmoving road. It was a more affluent section of town, full of sports cars and expensive sedans, all parked in front of high-rise condos and expensive penthouses. The air was warm, but at a standstill, with no ocean breeze this far east into the city. It was a peaceful, safe neighborhood, that is until the sounds of a running battle quickly filled it.

Cyborg charged his sonic cannon and let fly with a blast at the group of four robbers. The beam of blue energy exploded at their feet as they were leaping away, one wasn't fast enough, and got caught in its blast radius. He tumbled through the air and crashed onto the roof of a car parked on the street.

"Ok, he's out for the count." Cyborg said to himself as he ran by the heavily damaged sedan in pursuit of the other three. "One down." He radioed to the team, who were all a dozen yards ahead of him in the chase. The criminals had broken into a high-tech firm back up the street 30 blocks. The research teams there were experimenting with using super-high quality diamonds as information storage devices. Whether or not the research was going anywhere didn't matter, it was using diamonds, and diamonds, in Cyborg's experience, were a very strong motivating factor for anyone who chose to disregard the law.

When the Titans arrived at the firm the bandits already had three bags of the precious stones and were making for their getaway vehicle. With a well aimed starbolt, Starfire had knocked the van's engine out of commission, and being the determined baddies that they were, the men had decided to make a run for it along Jump's streets. They were fast and agile, a true high class sort of thief, and so far, they'd managed to keep the Titans at bay while they ran for it.

They always tried to run. Cyborg hated it when they ran. His displeasure was mollified when he knocked one of them out, but the other three were still up and running, and now that they were down one man, they knew they needed to change tactics.

Raven had flown ahead of the robbers a block, but when she looked back, ready to halt their advance, she saw they had used their high-powered rifles to blast open a sealed manhole and were dropping into it. She cursed her luck and darted towards the opening.

Cyborg got to the hole just as Beast Boy turned into a bat and dived into the darkness. Normally, he would never have fit through the manhole, but by either luck or a lack of foresight, the criminals had blasted away a large section of asphalt along with the steel cover that he was able to drop through.

The chase had not left him behind it seemed, as directly to his left he could see Starfire's glowing palms in the darkness, only a few yards away. He took off in that direction, switching his mechanical eye to the infrared setting and saw that his friends were in a long, spaced-out line, chasing the thieves northward down the large maintenance tunnel. Now sure of his direction and surroundings, he picked up the pace and after a few moments was pacing Raven, who stayed in back to make sure none of their quarry had turned off into one of the many side tunnels.

"Just another day on the job, huh?" He laughed.

"I'm just thankful this isn't a sewer." She quipped.

At the front of the chase Robin was breathing hard, but still felt strong enough to chase these guys all day. Beast Boy was running beside him as a cheetah, but even with Starfire a few feet ahead providing enough light to chase the quicker-than-usual criminals he couldn't see well enough to go full speed. Robin however, did see that the tunnel was dividing up ahead; those years in Gotham with Batman had forced him to see well in the dark. As he guessed, the men they were pursuing split into the tunnels. Starfire darted just above their heads and threw several starbolts in their direction, each of which was expertly avoided as the three criminals all took a different fork of the tunnel.

"They're splitting up!" Robin called out to his team as he barreled forward down the middle road after the man he was sure was the leader. Starfire followed him as Beast Boy broke left, transforming back into a bat to find his way in the darkness.

"Go left, Rea." Cyborg called "I've got the guy on the right." They split in opposite directions and Cyborg again quickened his pace to catch up to the would-be jewel thief. He was aided by the tunnel's angle as it started to descend steeply into the heart of the city's underground. The dim, very old, and mostly broken lights spaced about every 20 yards did little to help the lighting as he ran.

He noticed that they were passing the Williams Aquifer which was the deepest any of the tunnels beneath the city go, and he still had the bad-guy in sight as the man turned a corner a few yards up. As Cyborg rounded the same corner, he saw that the criminal had stopped, he was directly next to a yellow incandescent bulb on the right wall that still worked somehow after years of neglect, 'This can't be good.' Cyborg thought just as a bright flash emitted from the man's advanced weapon. He threw himself forward into the wall on his left and the blast crashed into the concrete and array of pipes he'd be in front of only nanoseconds before.

The shock of the blast helped knock him forward as the criminal backed up a few steps to fire again, but before he could loose his deadly shot, Cyborg's already charged right arm unleashed a blast of sonic energy that slammed the man into the wall. He slumped to the floor and his weapon clattered to the ground in a dozen pieces, having taken the brunt of the attack. Cyborg got onto his hands and knees and shook off the dust and debris from the exploded wall behind him.

"You're lucky that wasn't into the aquifer." He scolded the unconscious man as he got to his feet. He walked over and turned the sitting figure around, and removed the backpack attached to his dark-clothed body. He checked the contents and discovered to his relief that the diamonds were still inside. He was glad the criminal wasn't stupid enough to have thrown them away in the hope of not being charged with the actual crime without evidence. The stuff that got tossed always got found, but Cyborg did not relish the idea of searching for it along three miles of pitch black tunnels. He quietly thanked the still unconscious man for his professional courtesy and slung him over his massive shoulder. He started walking back when he stopped to look into the large hole created by his enemy's weapon.

"Damn good that didn't hit me." He whistled as he peered into the gaping black hole. It seemed as if the blast had opened up another tunnel of some sort, only not one built by city engineers 80 year ago. He looked quickly at the edges of the hole. A half foot of concrete and then another foot of solid rock. He turned on his flashlight and raised his arm into the hole. There was a floor only a few inches below the hole. He was thinking that he'd come back and explore this later when a glint caught his attention. Thinking it over for a moment, he none-too-gently put the man he was carrying back onto the floor and crouched down to step through the hole.

There was a layer of fine dust nearly a foot thick, and he stumbled from misjudging the distance to the actual floor. He swept his flashlight across the narrow tunnel again and caught sight of the glint. It was a few feet ahead of him; he cautiously made his way to it, stooped over due to the low hanging ceiling. He crouched down further to get a good look at what had reflected his light. It seemed like a small, black disc, about the size of the other Titans' communicators with a thin silver band around the middle. It was on a small outcropping of rock just above the dust, but strangely there was a ring around it, as though it had been placed there today. He saw no tracks in the dirt, however, other than his, though the tunnel did continue forward farther than his flashlight could reach.

He gingerly picked it up, but was surprised to find it was heavy; it seemed to be made out of some polished black stone, and both it and the silver band were remarkably untarnished, despite the obvious age of the tunnel. He held it in his open palm, his flashlight glaring down at it. Suddenly it emitted with a dim blue glow. Cyborg watched amazed as strange symbols began lighting up on what he assumed was the front of the near hockey puck. He noticed the same type of symbols now emblazed in the middle of the silver trim around the side.

How long he just stood there, hunched over in a five foot tunnel, his legs buried in dust he wasn't sure, but when the communicator on his arm sounded he jumped, and banged his head against the hard stone ceiling. After exclaiming a few choice profanities he looked activated the screen on his arm as he rubbed the back of his head with the hand still holding the glowing blue rock.

"Cyborg," it was Robin's face on his arm "you alright?"

"Yeah, no worse for the ware. I got my guy, and the diamonds."

"Good, Starfire and me got ours, and Raven and Beast Boy just radioed in to say they got theirs as well. We're all meeting under Washington and 21st."

"Alright, well he led me pretty deep; it'll take me a bit to get back. But I can find it on my map of the city, no problem." He said, turning back towards the hole. Robin acknowledged him and signed off. He crawled through and stood up, appreciative of a straight spine after what appeared to be a long time hunched over. The criminal was still out cold, so Cyborg again threw the man over his shoulder.

He was ready to start walking, but he turned back to the cave and looked from it to the object he had found. He thought maybe he should put it back, but his vision swam at the idea and something quickly told him that this may be an important discovery, one that merited further study. He shook his head and stowed the black disc in a small compartment on his chest.

--

Twenty minutes later he met up with his friends at a roadside entrance to the tunnels with a door large enough to accommodate their metallic friend. They turned the men and the diamonds into the police station a few blocks away, and warned them of the large hole in the middle of the street and made their way back to the tower.

After returning in the T-Car, they were sitting at the kitchen table, enjoying pizza—it had been late by the time they made it back and no one felt like making dinner. And as it had been Starfire's night to cook, the rest of the Titans were grateful, certain they couldn't stomach her particular brand of "food" after all that running. They all thanked god for the invention of the 24 hour pizza joint and ate happily.

Cyborg's thoughts kept drifting back to the small glowing object he had stowed within him, but it hadn't yet distracted totally him from the stories each Titan was telling about how they had captured their thief.

"So Raven throws up a shield to deflect the blast, and the thing bounces of it and flies back at the guy." Beast Boy waves his hands to the side to illustrate as he enthusiastically tells their story. "Well he dodges, but not far enough, 'cause it smacks into the wall of pipes on his right and blows open a sewer line!"

"I was wondering what they god-awful smell was…" Robin said, laughing.

"It must have been high-pressure or something, because it just splatters all over him and knocks him to the ground. After about ten seconds of this, Raven takes pity on the poor guy and pulls him out of it—from about fifteen feet away. So we're standing there, he's just lying on the ground, and I say…" he paused for dramatic effect "'Looks like you really flushed your life down the toilet.'" The other Titans' laughter and groans mixed together at that.

Sitting around after a battle and telling their story had become a bit of a tradition. Each of them tried their best to work the most ridiculous pun they could think of into the end of the fight; Robin won most nights. The green Titan glanced over at Raven; he managed a small smile out of her, which was a major victory in his eyes.

"Alright, Cy, your turn." Beast Boy said, leaning back in his chair as he took another bite of pizza.

Cyborg recounted his tale of running down into the depths of the tunnels after the man, then of how he rounded the corner "and the guy nearly took my head off! So as I'm diving out of the way, I zap him and he hits the wall. I pick him up and turn around, and I see this big 'ole hole in the wall where I just was and I…I, uh" he stuttered, slightly pausing a moment before continuing. "And that's when Robin called me, and I headed out."

"Ok, well you definitely lose tonight man, you didn't even give the guy one." The changeling folded his arms as he leaned his chair back on two legs.

"Well he was already out, and there wasn't much material to work with." Cyborg countered even as he thought 'Why didn't I tell them what I found?'

"Alright, I think we all know that Robin won, I mean, 'Maybe you'd have seen me coming at you down here, if you had eaten your carats.' Oh god, that was brilliant." Beast Boy was dying with laughter again as he repeated the Boy Wonder's pun.

"Guys, I think I'm gonna go to bed. Need to recharge the batteries after tonight." He waved to the other Titans as he walked off towards his room.

His mind was turning over and over as he thought about the object—no, artifact—it was an artifact he found. And a nice one at that. 'Why didn't he say anything to his friends? It's no big deal; I'll just study it a bit tonight, and then tell them about it in the morning.' His door slid open when he punched in his pass-code, it hissed quietly closed behind him as he walked over and clicked on a single light on his steel work bench. He placed the artifact in the middle of the small illuminated circle of yellow light.

The cybernetic teen pulled up a stool that could support his weight and stared at the black disc. He switched off the light and was bathed in its cold blue glow. He checked his battery levels in the display on his arm. He reached over to an array of cables and wires hanging from the ceiling and grabbed what he needed. Hooking a cable into his back, he never took his eyes off the artifact. He placed his arms gently on the bench and simply regarded the thing he had found.

'Yeah, I'll tell them tomorrow. Maybe tomorrow.'


	2. Through a Glass Darkly

**Author's Note**: Thanks to everyone who read, updates may be a little sporadic as I just started a new job and school's now underway, but I'll try my best to be quicker than this, I swear.

**Disclaimer**: Teen Titans? Nope, never heard of 'em.

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_It has become appallingly obvious that our technology has exceeded our humanity._

_-Albert Einstein-_

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Marching echoed endlessly in his ears. The heavy thud of hundreds, no, it had to be thousands of boots falling heavily in step. He couldn't tell where he was, just some place where people were marching, and he had absolutely no idea why. Maybe it was a parade. He took a chance and opened his eyes.

Nope. Not a parade.

He saw that he was standing on the side of a wide boulevard, the low buildings revealed a cloudless deep blue sky looming overhead. The sun seemed somehow darker than it normally was, but there wasn't a thing in the sky to change its look that he could see. In an instant his eyes were drawn to the source of the noise bombarding his ears. It was a column of men ten deep, filling his entire field of vision and striding proudly down the road. He turned his head to each side, the column of men stretched as far as he could see down either side.

Wait, were they men? He had just assumed, but they were in heavy armor that concealed their form beyond anything more than a humanoid shape. Now that he looked closer, he was sure they weren't, they were too tall, too broad. And the armor they wore and the weapons they carried looked like nothing he had ever seen before.

'_Where am I_?'As if in a flippant response to his question, an explosion behind him threw him violently to the ground as the sounds of marching turned into an inescapable ringing. The force of the blast made his vision blur and dance, lights within lights. When it returned, he groaned, though he could not hear it, and realized he was lying face down in a pile of ruined concrete. There were more explosions going off all around him, he could feel them shake the ground, and as he slowly started to turn over, he could see great plumes of fire rising out of the earth.

Suddenly a masked face appeared over his. It was the same armor as before. The only way he could describe it would have been a hockey mask from the future with a respirator attached to the front. Silver tubes, molded halfway into the mask, extended from each side and wrapped around the cheeks to disappear somewhere in the back of the neck. The eyes were flat screens of cobalt that glowed lightly against the black, armored mask. A mechanized hand—he could tell, even the most advanced cybernetics have certain characteristics—reached up and shook his head roughly. Suddenly his left eye went from a clear view of the dark, smoke-filled red sky to a light blue. It was a computerized display, giving him a read-out in symbols he couldn't make heads or tails of. His own right hand came into view, clad in the same armor as the person…thing…no, person, standing over him. It felt around the edge of his right eye and he realized that there was a hole where the other eye-display should be. Another nearby explosion cast orange and yellow light on the concrete around him.

He was none too gently hoisted to his feet by his counterpart. He looked down at his hands and feet, slowly moving his fingers. A heavy rifle was suddenly thrust into his arms. He held it and primed it to fire as naturally as he started the T-Car, like he'd done it a thousand times before. He turned to face the concrete pile, and realized it had been shielding his comrade and him from all the explosions; it loomed almost twice as tall as they were. He knew he needed to see over it, and scrambled quickly towards the top, what he saw as he peered his head over the rubble was a pitched battle the likes of which he could never have even imagined; and he leapt over the crest of the mound and headed straight into it.

--

Cyborg jumped up from his stool and banged his head on a low-hanging fluorescent work lamp pointed at the desk, shattering the bulb. He'd fallen asleep at his bench, staring at the artifact, which now lit the area with its faint cobalt glow; was it his imagination, or was it a little bit brighter than it was before? He rubbed the back of his head, more out of old biological habits than necessity, as he stared once again at the object. 'What a weird dream.' He thought as he checked the time on his right arm.

6:03am. 17 minutes earlier than normal. He usually woke up early enough to watch the sunrise, so he made his way to the kitchen and started a pot of coffee for himself and Robin, knowing that his friend would be down in a few minutes to begin his daily regimen of training. Grabbing the device and stuffing it into his chest compartment, he moved to his door.

After pouring himself a cup, he walked over to the stairwell and began his climb to the roof, thinking about what he had to do today. He needed to do a tune up on the T-Car, she was overdue, but he just hadn't found the time with the latest crime wave hitting so hard. The Titans had been called out 13 times in the last six days, and it was starting to wear on them, dishes had started piling up, things were out of place; and after two days of intensive searching, he still couldn't find the remote.

He had a few reports to file with the Jump City PD concerning the crimes they caught people doing, as well as any damages that were caused in the ensuing fight. And he needed to look into what it was that he found. It had so occupied his thoughts he had fallen asleep staring at it. He noted the irony of thinking about thinking about it, and shrugged it off. That little thing, whatever it was, was an important find, and he needed to study it, as long as possible.

Sitting on the roof, staring out at the orange and red sky over the coast, where the sun was about to rise above the mountains, he sipped his coffee and heard the stairwell door open behind him. A few moments of soft footsteps ended when a teenager with spiked black hair sat a few feet to his left on the roof's edge. His own cup of steaming coffee rose to meet his lips.

It had become something of a ritual for the two early risers to watch the dawn together. They knew Raven got up at least as early as they did, but she needed her personal time for meditation in the morning, and they rarely saw her before 8:30.

Suddenly, a blazing disc of scarlet crested the mountains and began to rise quickly above the horizon. The two Titans simply sat on the end Tower's roof, taking in the brilliance of the first light. Neither spoke—it was a tacit agreement of silence that had existed as long as they had both been coming up here, and Cyborg felt it was appropriate. Nothing needed to be said, they were there for the awing beauty, not for the chitchat.

Once the day's first light had passed, and the sun was a few degrees above the mountain, Cyborg stood, drained the last of his coffee, and walked slowly back to the stairwell; again, he always left first, another agreement the two had wordlessly reached without ever really thinking about it.

He made his way to the kitchen and refilled his coffee mug. Time to get started on breakfast, before Beast Boy woke up and was able to put in his own input for what he called 'food'.

--

Beast Boy let out a long groan as he fell heavily into the couch, splaying himself out with abandon.

"What a day." He brought a hand up to his brow. Starfire sat next to him, equally tired, while Robin leaned against the couch's back. Raven made tea in the kitchen while Cyborg slowly walked from the elevator doors to the kitchen table.

"Two bank robberies." He sighed.

"Three shootouts." The green Titan added.

"Control Freak trying to revive HD-DVD by force." Robin chimed in.

"The Johnny Rancid 'Running the muck'." Starfire ended the list. Robin turned his head, about to correct her, but he couldn't muster the energy for an explanation so he let it go. It was One in the morning, and the Titans had been out on call nearly the entire day.

The boy wonder looked over at Cyborg; his mostly metal friend was staring down at the kitchen table, which if Robin remembered correctly, was not all that interesting. He casually strolled over and sat in the chair opposite his teammate.

"Something up? You look preoccupied." He noticed that the Titan subtlety mouthing words.

"What? Oh—oh it's nothing, just decompressing from the day." He responded haltingly. "I think I'm gonna go to bed, I'm beat." He stood abruptly and walked off without waiting for a reply. Robin blinked behind his mask, but didn't press the matter. He stood and turned to the other Titans on the couch, Raven had evidently already disappeared to her room for the night.

"I'm going to call it a night guys, see you tomorrow—er, later today." They responded and added statements praising the idea of sleep.

--

The door hissed quietly shut behind him after he entered. His hand went to his chest and opened the compartment; he grabbed the small object and held it in front of him. Its glow had dimmed from what it had been when he woke up, but it still felt slightly warm in his hand. The lights in his room normally came on when he entered, but only in the daytime; the only source of light in the room was coming from him, and from the azure-glowing disc in his hand.

These endless fights were getting to him, he wanted to do more, something permanent. It never felt like they accomplished anything out there. Even though they ended up beating Rancid fairly badly—sometimes they just won't stay down—_and _breaking his bike into bits in the process, Cyborg would have been willing to bet a sizeable chunk of money that they'd have to do it again within a month.

'Crime's been going up, even though we almost always stop the robbers and the thieves; and they're getting more vicious, taking hostages, killing guards and cops.' He sighed as he paced about his room. "They just keep at it, like its their mission in life to make everyone else miserable. You'd think a team of superheroes would be a deterrent…"

"We need something more." He stopped "_I_ need to do something more." He brought down his fist clutching the object, hard, on his open palm. He opened his closed hand, simply staring at the object. Who knew, maybe he'd be able to get some sort of hyper-efficient power cell tech out of it; it had obviously survived down there a long time and still had juice left over. He had to find out what it was; he had to devote more time to it.

But right now he was far too worn out to conduct any sort of tests on it tonight, so he simply placed it back in his chest as he walked over to his nearly vertical bed. He plugged into his recharging equipment and quickly fell into a much needed sleep, one arm draped over, almost clutching, his chest.

--

He fired his weapon rapidly, laying down as much fire on the enemy position as he could while he charged forward, his comrades all around him doing the same. They slammed straight into the enemy line with a tremendous crash of metal on metal. He didn't know who the enemy was, he couldn't seem them behind their own full suits of armor.

One of his foes suddenly blocked his path only a few steps in front of him, he let off a quick burst of fire and the blue blots of energy left a burning hole where armor and flesh once were.

Out of the corner of his eye he saw another figure just behind him; he whirled to face it and had the butt of a rifle slammed into his head. His vision went dark. The helmet malfunctioned. He lost consciousness.

A split second later he was looking down at his hands. The gloved digits were coated in a dark, red-brown liquid. He moved his hands down to his side and saw the reason why. It was a creature. It looked like an alien out of Star Trek; high, ridged forehead, thick, matted hair, light green skin. It was lying on the rubble in front of him, a large knife sticking straight out of its chest, with the very same liquid dribbling out of the wound. He shook his hands to rid them of some of the creature's blood and he leaned over to pick up his assault rifle.

He glanced around; his fellow soldiers were all standing around the enemy's former position, some checking the bodies of fallen comrades, others inspecting their armor or weapons. A voice behind him called out and he began whirling to face it, brandishing his gun, but he realized it was a friend just as he was getting ready to squeeze the trigger and hope for the best. Or rather, it was a superior officer, judging by the ornate insignia on his armor.

He saluted, deftly stamping his right fist over his heart, and said in a voice he did not recognize "All Glory to the Empire!" His salutation was returned and the officer continued.

"Nice work here, Lieutenant, those Klorrisian scum will think a bit harder next time about trying to pick off one of our outer colonies."

"Yes sir." He answered, again in a voice that wasn't his own.

"I've got one more mission for you before your unit goes on leave. A new plant the Council has claimed for resources has been assaulted by a Fresian Special Forces group. Go there and eliminate them, by any means necessary. There's a small animal population, but they won't put up any resistance, you'll probably never even see any." He handed Cyborg a small, white crystal. He looked down at it, puzzled, but his superior seemed to think it was important.

He looked up from the crystal in his open palm. "What is this plant's designation, sir?"

"We're not sure what the native animals call it, or even if they have any concept of what a planet is…" his short laugh was audible even through his helmet "but the Council has named Earth."


End file.
